Lilies
by DragonLadie
Summary: A friend is remembered


Lilies  
By: DragonLady  
Disclaimer: Star Trek Voyager is the possession   
of Paramount.    
Archive: Only with author's permission  
  
  
  
  
Lillies  
  
  
  
  
  
  
I placed a lily on her grave.    
  
I remember her, eyes sparkling in the glow of candlelight.  Her dark hair curled, catching reflections of umber and cobalt from the dancing flames on her birthday cake.  I remember her laughter.  She would tease me about my hairline, asking why, as a hologram capable of taking any form, I chose to remain bald.  She told me that over the centuries, medical science has been able to cure any number of diseases from Aids to Athlete's foot.  However, they have yet to find a cure for baldness.  Yet, she told me, I was capable of ending my own suffering with a simple twitch of my program.  I asked her why I should be the one to change.  "Why not simply have the rest of the crew shave their heads?"  She laughed at the picture that brought to mind.  "Although, I know of at least one famous Captain who did just fine without hair."    
  
I doubted Captain Janeway would agree.    
  
The same time every day, she would enter the sickbay.  She would glance around, brush the dark hair from her eyes, and ask me how I was doing.  I would respond, sometimes jokingly, often serious, but always with welcome.  I would ask her how her shift was, she would say it was fine... and would smile.  I learned later that she was harboring a crush on Lieutenant Wills, and that they had recently been assigned duty shifts together.    
  
One week later, I would choose to let her die.  
  
I agonized over the decision.  As a hologram, capable of instantaneous reactions, equipped with the ability to analyze over a dozen classical scores from Brahms to Von Gluck, while at the same time, performing a major surgical operation... I could not even move a single holographic finger.  Instead, with perfect recall, I was remembering a story she told me only two days earlier.  She was ten years old.  Her mother and father had been called away on another mission, so she was left in the care of her aunt.  Being that her aunt lived in the country, there was plenty of space for her to roam.  It was not long before she discovered the pond.  Though not very large, the pond was filled a variety of creatures.  Leopard spotted frogs and tiny, black crickets leaped everywhere, chirruping gaily.  On the pond's surface, small water bugs and other insects traced intricate patterns of swirls and spirals. Underwater, various fishes and minnows gleamed just out of reach.  But what caught her eye, what brought her back to the pond again and again, were the lilies.  Snowy white, glistening with diamond sparkles, were hundreds of water lilies.  Every evening, she would visit the pond.  She would sit awhile, admiring their still beauty.  Then, carefully, she would lower herself into the sea of flowers.  She would describe their perfume to me as a sort of wet, fresh cut grass sort of smell.  I never understood the reference, but I didn't enjoy her story any less for my ignorance.    
  
After her swim, she would return to the shore, were she would watch the pond as the sun set on its silken waves.  Years later, when she was assigned to Voyager, she made a holodeck representation of her pond to take with her wherever she went.  However, she never visited it.  She told me she was afraid of the feelings it would evoke.  Her memories were those of a child.  As an adult, her view on the universe had changed.  If she were to feel differently now, if the tiny pond could no longer be her special world, how could she bear the destruction of her treasured memories?    
  
As it was, she would never find out.  By my choice, she would die before the chance   
ever arose.  
  
It was over a year before I had the courage to visit her grave.  I know, technically, she isn't buried here.  Her body was shot from Voyager's torpedo bay into the heart of a sun with all the rites of ceremony a Starfleet officer deserved.  But this would never make up for my failure.  Later, when I was finally allowed to remember, to realize what I'd done and what we'd lost, I went to her.  
  
It was just as she'd described it.  The sun was setting over the water, the crickets and frogs were sharing a poignant melody, tiny water bugs were skating across the surface.  And shining pale in the retreating rays, glistening with water droplets, were the lilies.  They were indeed beautiful.  I watched them, as she had done so long ago.  I watched them as the sun vanished behind the mountains.  In the rising moonlight, I watched their color shift from pearl to silver.  It wasn't until the first of the stars winked into sight that I turned to her.  Her grave mound was facing the pond.  A standard Starfleet marker graced its head.  Behind me, the crickets fell into silence.  I had no words.  Me, with a database compiled of millions of texts on death, funerals, eulogies, and last rites... I could not connect two words together.    
  
So I did the only thing I could do.  I think she would feel it fitting.  I know it's a tradition in death, a way to show respect, and to indicate that that person was remembered, and will be missed.  And I will miss her.  I will miss her humor, her endless teasing, as well as her tenderness, her creativity, her presence.  How to show all that in a single gesture?  Just before I left, before I returned to the brash eternal drama of the living, I knelt by her side, and said goodbye.  
  
And I placed a lily on her grave.  
  
  
  
  
-End 


End file.
